


no sweeter innocence

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6568885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not many things take him by surprise these days, always alert, on his guards. And yet here he is, with a mouthful of black hair in his mouth and a feminine body pressed against him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no sweeter innocence

Lucifer tries not to walk down the streets of Los Angeles, if he doesn’t have to. There is something unnerving in spending time around humans when they are in their natural habit – Lux is fine, bodies swaying in the darkness, minds clouded with alcohol, more shadows than beings. Here, everything is too bright, too loud, too lovely. It gives him a headache, just looking at them going on with their lives, unaware of him, of his powers. He could kill them in a snap of his fingers, could send them to rot in hell for all of eternity if he so wishes.

But Maze, the little demon, took his car last night – no doubt to visit the lovely lady she regularly spends the night with – and Lucifer is reduced to walking and, heavens help him, taking the subway like a human. He draws the line at calling an Uber, because lines need to be drawn at some point. Walking is a pain, but not as much as small talk with insignificant people.

So walking it is, the trek between Lux and the offices where he is meeting a new investor thankfully a short one – only ten minutes, if his calculations are correct, and they usually are. He does his best not to bump into anyone on his way, even if he has to contort his upper body in uncomfortable positions. It’s been awhile since he let anybody touch him with his clothes still on, and he’s better off with it not happening any time soon. Carnal pleasures are one thing; the mindless brushing of fingers on his skin, on the other side…

That is, until he hears his name being screamed at him, until arms are around his waist before he can ever react. Not many things take him by surprise these days, always alert, on his guards. And yet here he is, with a mouthful of black hair in his mouth and a feminine body pressed against him. His arms rise on their own accord, his entire body leaning backward, in an instinctual motion than he hasn’t had to use in a very long time – the memory dusty and almost forgotten in a corner of his mind. He blinks down at the girl – woman, really – in his arms, blinks down until she finally lets go on him only to grin up and bounces on her feet.

He would recognize that smile everywhere, the dimple in her cheeks – he would recognize her with that smile, if the hug hadn’t done the trick already. “Beatrice,” he says slowly, almost unbelievingly. As if her name in his mouth makes it real somehow – makes _her_ real, and standing in front of him with the same energy she had when she was but a child, happy and loud and utterly disgusting.

Lucifer stopped counting the years a long while ago, but the passing of time comes back to slap him in the face as he looks at her more carefully. She’s grown into a gorgeous woman, there is no denying it – her skin golden with both her origins and too many hours spent in the furnace of Los Angeles, her hair long and dark as it falls around her face. She’s dressed simply, jeans and a black tank top, a sharp reminder of the Decker women’s disinterest for frilly things. His eyes linger on the flannel shirt tied around her hips for longer than is necessary, memories coming back to him. But it is her face that has Lucifer taking the metaphorical step back. She looks so much like her mother that it is a punch to the guts, a slap to the face – her features, the fire in her eyes more ardent than that of hell itself, her smile bright like heaven’s clouds. There is so much of Chloe in Beatrice, a reminder of what Lucifer left behind.

It was for their own good, he reminds himself, but the excuse is weaker every time. It was for his own good, for his own selfish reasons. One bullet to Chloe’s thigh, aiming his head, was all it took for him to take off, to stop answer his phone, to let Maze deal with the detective when she showed up at Lux. It was the coward thing to do, but the right one too – she was safer that way, safer away from him, safer without him.

He has seen death from up close, has killed more than he will ever admit, but that is one he never wants to have on his conscience. One he never wants to have to witness.

(He’s never been good with saying goodbye.)

And now Beatrice is there in front of him, so happy and so alive that it makes Lucifer long for a past long gone, a future that could never be. He’s the Devil, he doesn’t want nor deserve the domesticity that his brain provided for him at times. As much as he tried to deny his nature, back then, he was still a fallen angel, a demon – he would never have been a human, not even for her. Pretending can only get you so far, after all, and he couldn’t stand the idea of seeing the passing of time on her beautiful face while he stayed unchanged. It wouldn’t have been fair, for any of them but especially not for her.

It’s as weak as explanations go, but it eases his selfish mind a little.

Only a little.

He also curses Maze for stealing his car, because walking among strangers is one things, as disgusting as it is. Facing Beatrice, ten years later, is a whole different discussion. A discussion he doesn’t want to have, truth be told, but if she is like her younger self…

“It’s been so long! What’s up?”

She is. _Wonderful_.

Lucifer shoves his hands in the pockets of his trousers, hoping for nonchalance to hide the way he sways on his feet, unsure of what to say or how to react. He wouldn’t call himself nervous, but little Trixie always had that way about her to keep him on his toes, uneasy and out of place. Nothing has changed on that front, he is afraid.

“Same old, same old,” he replies with his signature grin – the shit-eating one that used to drive Chloe up the wall, much to his delight. Beatrice rolls her eyes, so it must run in the family. “But the same thing can’t be said about you, obviously.”

She looks down at herself, which makes Lucifer smiles. The smile soon disappears from his mouth, though, when she replies, “Yeah well, that’s what happens eventually. Humans grow up.”

Her voice is light – too light, really. That, she doesn’t take after her mother, or her douchebag of a cop-killer father for all it matters. Chloe never was one to hide her sarcasm or her irritation, especially when thrown at Lucifer’s face. Beatrice, on the other hand, is all fake smiles and not-so-soft eyes, her words dripping with the negative feelings she barely manages to conceal. Not that Lucifer can fault her for it – Chloe isn’t the only one he left behind, when he disappeared from her life. As much as he liked to deny it back then, he had grown attached to little Trixie, the feelings more than mutual.

“And eventually they grow old,” he agrees.

There is understanding in the girl’s eyes, like she came to the right conclusions ages ago. Lucifer isn’t even surprised; she was always a mature and clever little thing after all, wise beyond her years despite the childish candour.

“She thinks about you sometimes,” Beatrice says, perhaps a little _too_ knowing. Then, with fingers on the side of her head in place of horns, she adds, “With kids at Halloween, she gets that look like, kinda sad and amused, you know?”

No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t need the image of her melancholic smiles to haunt him in the dead of the night. He doesn’t want to think of her sad, big eyes when she looks at children dressed in red and screaming for a sugar high. He doesn’t want her memories, her lingering feelings. Humans, never able to let go, they will be the death of him.

He does rock on his heels this time as he replies, “Yeah, well. We both know what she thought about the horns and the tail.”

Beatrice had guessed fairly quickly. The gift of being a child, perhaps, her mind still reeling with fairytales and Santa and the Easter bunny. If she could believe in such things, admitting that her mother’s friend (partner, confidence, lov…) was Satan himself wasn’t such a stretch from there. And, well, there was that one time with the man who had broken into the Deckers’ house, only to find himself face to face with a really irritated Lucifer. He hadn’t been able to hide his demonic eyes from the girl and the rest, as they say, is history.

If only it had been that easy, to have Chloe believing him too. Perhaps it would have tipped the balance, when he chose to run away – in which way, Lucifer isn’t sure. But it would have influenced his decision, one way or another. It would have influenced their relationship, too, even if he refuses to think about it more often than not.

“You never really let her believe, though,” Trixie replies. “With your _Luciferness_ , over-the-top and all. How could she believe you?”

“You thought about it, didn’t you?” He replies, because he refuses to think of what Trixie is implying. Refuses to think that, if he hadn’t acted like a madman about it (which he had, really) then maybe Chloe would have been more inclined to believe the impossible. If he had gone about it the right way – but did he want to? Or did he know she would never believe him, perfectly aware that the act would never work on her? Even Linda would have called him delusional, after all, if it weren’t against her work ethics.

“Well.” Trixie lingers on the word as she tugs a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “She isn’t the only one who couldn’t forget you.”

And another punch of the guts is it, hitting where it hurts the most. The belief that his leaving them was the better option for everyone involved now crumbles around him like a house of cards. He never wanted to hurt them but, in his stubborn will to keep them safe, managed to do it anyway. Not even a ‘perhaps it was for the best’ sounds compelling now – but did it ever?

“Anyway,” she goes on, before he has time to do something as reckless as apologizing. “I should get going.”

His smile is sad when it tugs up Lucifer’s lips, and he swallows around a knot in his throat. He doesn’t want Beatrice back in his life, if only because it would be admitting to his flaws and his mistakes, but he doesn’t want to see her go either. Greed, one of the big seven. He’s greedy for more time, for the clocks to go back, for a life he was never meant to have. He’s greedy for the Decker women, wants to call them _his_ again. They were, a long time ago, and he was theirs too. Such a foreign concept, such a complex feeling.

“Off you go then,” he replies with another grin on his lips, one that is as fake as it is big.

Hers looks just as forced when she takes a step back and waves awkwardly. She walks backward for a second or two before turning around, hair flowing around her face. He doesn’t wonder what she looked like on prom night, such a human thought to have. He doesn’t wonder when she first fell in love, how many hearts she broke already. If hers got broken, and he wasn’t there to protect her, to avenge her.

But Chloe was. Chloe has always been there for her daughter.

“Can you tell your mother…”

It’s a good thing Trixie doesn’t let him finish the sentence, because Lucifer has no idea where he was going with that. Crashing into a brick wall, most likely. “Don’t,” the girl replies, raising both hands. “I’ve done it enough with mom and dad.”

Lucifer doesn’t ask if she’s talking about the divorce, or Detective Douche being in prison. Both, probably, playing the dutiful messenger until she got sick of it. Lucifer can’t blame her for this one – temperance doesn’t always come easy, not even to the good ones.

“Fair enough,” he says, and bows his head to her. “Have a nice day, Beatrice.”

“You too, Luci.”

Lucifer ignores the pang of – _something_ , deep within his chest, as he watches Trixie go, both away and out of his life. It’s almost like she was never really there, just a ghost of his past back to haunt him. Ghosts aren’t real, of course – heaven and hell, the only two options given in the afterlife – but there is no other word to describe Trixie’s sudden appearance in his life. A ghost, or perhaps a cruel joke from his Father. Both, even.

Lucifer wets his lips, and looks down to his hands.

If he had a knife, would he be bleeding right now?

Does he want to know?


End file.
